Date of Award
2003
Document Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Education
Department
Programs for Higher Education
Advisor
Patricia Grimes Smith
Committee Member
Donna Blaess
Committee Member
Barbara Packer
Keywords
adjustment difficulties, attendance, constructive orientation procedures, discipline referrals, dropout prevention, dropout rate, freshman attendance, freshman performance, freshmen, Hunt High School, mentoring, parental contacts, parental involvement, staff development, student transitions, success tracking, suspensions, transition program
Abstract
Freshman performance at Hunt High School was unacceptable. The 1999-2000 school year records revealed that 16% of freshmen had a grade point average of below 1.0. A total of 68 students dropped out of school during the 1999-2000 school year; 33 of these students were freshmen. In addition, 35% of freshmen failed 1 or more subjects during the 1999-2000 school year. Freshmen were also 3 times more likely to be given referrals for discipline than older students and 4 times more likely to be suspended.
The writer first conducted a preliminary investigation to find answers to this problem. As a result, the writer developed a transition program that focused on mentoring, constructive orientation procedures, parental contacts, and the constant tracking of freshmen to ensure their success. The goal was to reduce the number of freshmen dropping out of school.
The interventions had 3 objectives. Objective 1 was to improve attendance of freshmen by at least 2.00%. In 2001-2002, the attendance rate of freshmen increased 3.35%, to 96.36%. Objective 2 was to reduce by at least 10.00% the number of freshmen failing 2 or more subjects. During the 2001-2002 school year, 46 freshmen failed 2 or more subjects. This represented a 47.25% reduction in the number of students who failed 2 or more subjects. Objective 3 was to reduce freshman suspensions by at least 10.00%. Freshman suspensions in 2001-2002 numbered 54. This represented a 49.22% decrease from the 1999-2000 school year and a 40.66% decrease from the 2000-2001 school year. All objectives were met.
The goal of the transition program was to lower the dropout rate of freshmen. The result was a 1.7% decrease in freshman dropouts between the 2000-2001 school year and the 2001-2002 school year. However, there was a 44.5% decrease between the 1999-2000 and 2001-2002 school years.